……“Shri Sai Baba of Shirdi
is verily called as Sadguru, Fakir, Awalia, Maha Yogi
and most importantly “the Incarnation of the Age”.
When Baba was in Shirdi some spiritual personalities used
to visit that place.

On seeing Baba as a young person at Shirdi one such personality
Shri Gangagir commented that the young Sai was like a
jewel under a heap of cow-dung and also that one day His
divine shine will bring glory to Shirdi.

Meher Baba, (a disciple of Upasani Maharaj who was the
Prime disciple of Baba) has commented that he knew that
Shri Sai is like the beginning and end of creation. Upasani
Maharaj has spoken a lot on Shri Sai, saying that Shri
Sai is everything.

Thus, a lot has been spoken and written on Shri Sai.
Hundreds of epithets have been used in His name. The “Sai
Nam Astottarasata Namahvalih” glorifying the names
and divine qualifies of Shri Sai are recited in most of
the temples of Baba. People during His time and as also
today have exhaustively written on this majestic and unfathomable
divine personality, on the past and present miraculous
deeds related to Him and on emotional attachment of the
devotees with Him. Crores of people are being drawn towards
Him and thousands of temples have been built all over
India and some in other countries. His photographs can
be seen everywhere. The process of such expansion continues.
Today He is the Sai - the Master and father to so many.
The number of devotees is ever on the increase and this
“Sai Wave” is slowly but surely engulfing
humanity.

Speculations apart,
the fact remains that the divine status of Shri Sai has
not been exactly defined. The Hindus use all the terminologies
and epithets quoting from their scriptures to explain
the divine attributes and Leelas of Shri Sai. Shri Sai
is worshipped as Sai Maharaj, Sai Bhagwan, Sai -Ram, Sai
Krishna, Sai Vithala, Sai-Mouli (means mother), Sai Param
Brahma, Sai Shiva, Sai Dattatreya, Sai Vishnoo, Sai Shankara,
Sai Avatara and Sai Ishwara, etc. Would one analyse these
divine epithets He would be drawn to the conclusion that
although Shri Sai Baba played the role of a Sadguru i.e.
a Perfect Master while at Shirdi, He is much beyond that.

Shri Sai left His
human embodiment long ago, without institutionalizing
His movement and without leaving an heir-apparent as most
of the Gurus do. He came to serve His devotees for their
spiritual evolution, although he rendered temporal benefit
to all of them more by His kind acts than through speech.
An analysis of the visible personality of Shri Sai would
indicate that he was totally detached from all material
needs, was sometimes in a Jalali (spiritually intoxicated)
state, used his spiritual powers for the benefit of His
devotees in abundance, treated all equally, not-withstanding
the barriers of caste, religion, creed, language, temporal
status, etc.; was divinely compassionate to all, including
animals, was in a state of God-intoxication and beyond
all behaved like an ordinary man in a village without
any assertion of His divine hierarchy (as many Gurus do).
He lived in one place and left His body having served
who-so-¬ever came to Him for 60 years without seeking
any returns.

Today Shri Sai is a name known to most of the people
of India. Shirdi has become a ‘Tirath’ with
devotees from all over the world making a bee-line there.
The “Saism” as many call it, is expanding
very fast. Such expansion by sheer self- motivation of
His devotees indicates the power that “Shri Sai”
is even eighty six years after His Samadhi. This is what
happened to all the incarnations in the past.

Let us pray to Shri Sai, “the Incarnation of the
Age” on the New Years' day to guide and bless us.”…….

FROM "LIFE OF SAI BABA" BY NARASIMHA SWAMI

……“There
was no special celebration of Guru Poornima, and each
person worshipped separately with that Arati song. There
was no congregational worship. As for Guru Poornima, Baba
told Dada Kelkar on a Guru Poornima day, “Don’t
you know that this is Gurupoornima Day? Come with your
worship materials and do your Guru puja”. So from
that day, every year Guru puja is being conducted by all
devotees at Shirdi. And still, at other times, it was
individual puja alone. The occasion for its developing
into congregational puja was the sending by H.Y.Sathe
of a Brahmin named Megha to Shirdi.

Megha was a very peculiar
orthodox Brahmin. He did not even know his Gayatri. But
he did not wish to go near Muslims or have anything to
do with the worship of Muslims. Sathe found him living
at Viramgaon when he was Deputy Collector there. He found
Megha repeating ‘Namas-Sivaya’ always. So,
finding that he was sufficiently pious, Sathe taught him
Sandhya and Gayatti and sent him to Broach to worship
Siva there. After he did Siva worship at Broach, Sathe
sent him to Shirdi telling him that Siva was in flesh
and blood at Shirdi in the form of Sai Baba, and gave
him the necessary money.

But at the Broach railway
station, Megha learnt that Sai Baba was a Muslim, and
he was horrified. “What? Have I to go and bow to
a Muslim and pray?” he thought. He requested Sathe
not to send him to Shirdi. But Sathe insisted and gave
him a letter to Dada Kelkar who, he said, would introduce
him to Baba and make him understand Baba. But when Megha
went to the Shirdi Mosque, Baba got angry and would not
allow him to get into the Mosque. Baba said ‘Kick
out that rascal,’ and asked ‘What a fool is
this Saheb (meaning H. V. Sathe) to send this man here?’
Megha then went away to Triambak and worshipped Gangadareswarar
for a year and a half. He suffered there from severe pains
in his abdomen. During that time he got faith in Baba
and came back to Shirdi. Dada Kelkar interceded on his
behalf, and Baba allowed him to stay at Shirdi and worship
him at the Mosque.

Baba’s work on
Megha was purely internal. Baba did not give him any oral
instruction at all. But by that internal change, Megha
became the most remarkable bhakta of Sai Baba, whom he
considered really as Siva. Megha being a hardy man, would
daily go to Godavari, which is locally called Ganga (5
miles away from Shirdi en route to Kopergaon -station),
bring Ganga water, and pour it on the head of Siva, Siva
being Sai Baba.

Sri R.B. Purandhare,
an Ankita of Baba, mentions here one chamatkar of Baba.
In his anxiety to pour Ganga water on Baba, Megha had
brought a whole pot. Baba told him, ‘Arre, the head
is the chief thing; so put a few drops on the head, and
that will suffice’. But the impetuosity of Megha’s
bhakti made him take up the whole pot and turn it upside
down over the head of Baba. Strangely, not a drop of water
fell on the body of Baba. The whole pot of water had fallen
on the head and come away without touching Baba’s
body. So, just as Siva had tied up Ganga in his own tuft
(kabadha), Baba also used his head for retaining and throwing
away the water so as not to touch his body or clothes.

Megha was treated by
Baba very kindly, and Baba suited himself to Megha’s
taste. As he specialised in Siva worship, Baba gave him
a Pindi (or lingam as we call it), that is, an elongated
round stone which is worshipped as Siva, when placed in
the hollow of another stone, which is called yoni. Somebody
had brought a pindi to Baba, and Baba presented it to
Megha and asked him to go on with its worship. This was
installed in Sathe Wada, and Megha worshipped Sivalinga
there.

Just immediately before
this pindi came, Baba appeared in Megha’s sleep
and told him ‘Draw up a Trisul’ (i.e. Siva's
Trident). Megha wondered how Baba’s voice could
be heard inside the wada. So, he went to the Mosque and
asked Baba whether he gave the order. Baba said he did,
and when asked how he could get entrance into the wada
when the door was bolted, Baba declared, ‘Bolted
doors do not bar access to Me’. Megha also was given
a huge picture of Baba by H. S Dixit to be placed by the
side of his pindi so that he could worship the Sivalinga
there and Sai Baba’s picture together.

Baba noting his peculiar
idiosyncrasy to worship all the gods in the temples of
the village, that is, Devi, Sani, Siva, Maruthi, and Khandoba,
told him, ‘After worshipping all these, come and
worship Me’. Megha was regularly doing so. Megha
was impressed with Baba’s omnipresence by his directions
on some occasions.

One day when he went
to Khandoba’s temple, Upasani Maharaj, who lived
there, had bolted the door from within, and he could not
enter into the temple and worship Khandoba. So he returned
to Baba. Khandoba’s temple is a very long way off
from Baba’s Mosque and is not visible from there.
When Megha went to worship Baba on that day, Baba told
him, ‘You have not yet done worship at Khandoba’s.
If you go there now, you will find the door open. Do the
puja of Khandoba and then come here’. (B.C.S. 158).
Megha then went to Khandoba and saw the door then open
as stated by Baba. After doing that puja also, he went
to Sai Baba for puja.

Megha died in 1912 at
Shirdi. Baba’s appreciation was shown by his coming
to the corpse and placing his hands over it saying, ‘This
was a true devotee of mine’. Baba bore the expenses
of the funeral dinner, and Kaka Saheb Dixit carried out
his order. ”……

DEVOTEE'S EXPERIENCE

Prior to last year, my wife
and I were not such ardent devotees of Shri Shridi Sai,
though we believed in His greatness and had pasted His
picture with both His hands raised in blessing, on our
bedroom door. In April 2005, my wife, Lakshmi, had to
undergo neurosurgery for a Pituitary Tumor that had recurred
after about 5 years. Prior to the surgery we were tense
and worried as it was a major and critical surgery. We
requested a dear friend who is a Reiki sadhak like both
of us to come home and join me in giving Reiki to my wife.
After the Reiki session, she suddenly noticed the picture
of Sai Bhagwan and remarked that when He has been with
us in our own room all the time, there is nothing to fear
and the surgery will be successful. Next morning when
I was checking my e-mails, to my great surprise, I had
received a beautiful picture of Shirdi Sai from someone
I did not know. We both believed that this was His way
of blessing us and telling us not to fear when He is there
in our hearts. The surgery went well. Two days later,
I was returning to the hospital with some food for my
wife and as I turned a corner, I noticed the image of
Shirdi Sai reflected from a shop window. I had taken this
route so many times, but this had never happened before.
It was the reflection of a painting someone had made recently
on the wall opposite the shop. A few days later, as I
was coming out of a post-office, the first thing I noticed
was a car with His picture on the windshield. After a
couple of days, I had to buy some coffee from my usual
coffee shop. But that day I could not go there, so I stopped
suddenly at another branch on an impulse. I was astounded
to again notice Sai's picture in this shop whereas in
my usual one there were only pictures of Jesus and Mary.

After the receipt of Sai's
picture in my e-mail, I did a Google search for Shirdi
Sai's temples. Again I was surprised to notice that the
very first entry was about 'The Shirdi Sai Temple of Greater
Chicago' where both my son and daughter were living. We
had also been to Chicago many times, but had never heard
about this temple of Shirdi Sai. We immediately rang up
our children and asked them to visit the temple and offer
prayers so that their mother's surgery would be successful.

A year after the surgery, we
decide to move to a better locality in Chennai. We started
looking for suitable places, but could not find any that
met our requirements. Then a relative mentioned a place
was available near his residence. We visited that place
and to our utter amazement we found a big picture of Sai
very prominently displayed in the drawing room by the
current occupants who are also ardent Sai devotees. Then
and there we decided to shift to this nice place as Sai
Himself seemed to be directing us to this place. We now
live here.

A few days after we moved to
the new place, we went for our morning walk and noticed
a small Shirdi Sai Shrine in the garden of a house in
the next street. The owner is an ardent Sai devotee and
permits people to worship and offer prayers here. So we
go there often and worship Sai Bhagwan. What more can
His devotees need? We have been extremely fortunate in
this respect - being so close to Him and being blessed
and guided by Him in this amazing way so unique to Him.

All these frequent and quite
unexpected sightings of Shirdi Sai at the time of our
greatest crisis made us believe that it was His way of
conveying His blessings to us and reminding us that He
is always with us and we can all discern His divine presence
and power if only we repose total faith and belief in
Him. Such are the inimitable, divine ways of Sai.

My wife is scheduled to have
her follow-up MRI. We pray to Him to bless us as always
so that my wife's tumor disappears forever. We request
all our fellow Sai Devotee friends to pray for my wife.

The
Rhythm, the Emotion,
The Chanting, the Devotion,
The Ringing and Swinging bells,
The Sound of Drums, the Conches and the Shells,
The Fragrance of the Burning incense,
The Aura and the Diadem,
The Floral Decorations,
The Voices of Salutations,
The People in Prostration,
The Freshness in the Morning Prayer,
The Splash in the river,
The Eastern winds sending Shivers,
The Festivals and the Commotion,
The Entrenched images appears,
As I assimilate the nostalgic notions,

No other way to go,
Whenever I feel the hollow,
It's the path towards my temple, which I follow,
Once I am there everything follows,
There I get a glimpse of His magnificence,
Which acts as an antidote to sorrow,
Where doubts disappear and happiness follows.

Taking Dakshina [money] from
His followers used to be an important part of Sri Sai
Baba’s style of guiding His followers.

Whatever He used to collect
during the day, He used to distribute in the evenings.
He used to give out specific but different amounts to
some people around Him every day; He used to pull out
money from His pocket without counting. The miracle was
that each person used to get exactly the same amount every
day. No matter how much He used to collect everyday, by
the next morning He used to be back being the poor fakir.

Once the British government
wanted to tax the money received by Sri Sai Baba and appointed
a secret agent to count the money Sri Sai Baba received
everyday. The agent used to get perplexed and frustrated
because, according to his observation, Sri Sai Baba used
to receive about 25 rupees everyday but He used to distribute
in hundreds of rupees. How this was possible was the dilemma?
As Sri Sai Baba's devotees know, when Baba (God) walked
on earth, anything was possible.

Sometimes Sri Sai Baba’s
asking for money used to be to remind the devotees to
pay off previously forgotten commitments or to highlight
their weaknesses and bring change in them.

Sri Sai Baba used to say:
"I never take money unnecessarily nor do I take from
everyone. I ask only those that Allah points me to. Actually,
the person that gives me money is planting seeds for a
better future. Money is there to do good to others and
to progress in the path of dharma. If money is spent only
for personal comforts, such use of money is a waste.

What you have is given by God
and now is being asked by God. By giving money the person
attains Jnana and increases his devotion. What do I do
with money? I give back ten times more."

Life is a journey from birth to death; we keep evolving
to better ourselves. In this process we have limitations,
for whatever means adopted we are in bondage with our
small self. To free ourselves from the shackles of self,
we look for larger causes. Mahatma Gandhi in liberating
India from the shackles of British rule, was riddled with
bullets in a prayer meeting. His last words were Hey Ram?
What messenger have you sent to take my life in violence?
All my life I have fought with non-violence against the
British rule. In fact violence will be met with violence,
which is what we witness today. His faith in Ram never
diminished, in spite of all tribulations, humiliations
at the British hands. Sir Winston Churchill called him
a naked faqir. We all live in faith. In Shirdi we see
His eternal face of love and compassion.

Jagannathan Padmanabhan, Bangalore

The
daily life is full of turmoil. The ambitions, aspirations
and expectations are a constant source of misery to one
and all. Remembrance and meditation on the holy name of
Guru deep within our heart gives us little solace and
energy for meeting the needs of daily life. I feel only
a spiritual person can offload all his or her worries
at the lotus feet of Guru and find peace.

Herewith, I would like to thank you for sending me the
Newsletter Sai Heritage E-Zine. I am a devotee of Shirdi
Sai Baba and I have never been to India and I have got
to know my dear Baba only by receiving one of his books.
It just happened that I found exactly the same book in
a bookshop without even looking for it. I love him very
much and I had promised him last year that if I could
raise the assets of my children to more every year then
I would spend some amount of money (which He knows Himself)
for Shirdi Baba Temple. But since last year somehow I
have lost most of my assets and now I am facing a lot
of difficulties, I am sure my dear Baba will help me to
overcome this problem very soon. If one day I overcome
my problem I will surely come to India and spend the money
that I have promised my dear Baba. Right now unfortunately
I could not be of any help but by receiving your articles
it gives me a feeling that my dear Baba is behind all
these contacts just to show me that he is aware of what
is going on. I only would like to ask for my Dear Baba's
energy be with me and my family to overcome this problem.

Yar
Yavari, USA

Thank you so much for sending me Hertage of Shirdi Sai
magazine. It came just in time when I needed it. It is
so beautiful in every way. The pictures add extra beauty
to the magazine. The cover is sooooo sweet, Baba's blessing
Hand and His Lotus Feet on a real peacock feather! Wow!
Hats off to the great and wonderful idea!

The Shirdi Sai Mandir
located at 2721 Markham Road, Unit# 8, Toronto, Ontario,
M1X 1L5 (Intersection of Markham and Nashdene) is open
through out the day on Saturday, Sunday and holidays and
in the morning and evenings on all weekdays. Baba's Kakad
Aarti, Abhishek Puja, Madhyan Aarti, Dhoop Aarti, Satcharita
Reading and Shej Aarti are performed every day. Bhajans
and Sai Naam Sankirtan in the evening on Thursday and
Saturday. For information regarding the daily schedule,
temple activities and events please visit Mandir's website:
http://www.theshirdisaimandir.ca
or send an email to info@theshirdisaimandir.ca
or call 647-444-4724

By the grace of our Shirdi
Sai we are happy to announce the inauguration of Shri Shirdi
Sai Temple in LA region in the city of Montebello. We need
the support of all Sai Devotees. For more information please
email krishna@shirdisaila.org

The North America Shirdi Sai Temple is located at 700
James Burgess Road,Suwanee GA 30024.Temple is open all
seven days of the week. Baba's Kakad Aarti, Abhishek Puja,
Madhyan Aarti, Dhoop Aarti and Shej Aarti are performed
every day. Bhajans are sung on all thursday and sunday
evenings. For information regarding the daily schedule,
temple activities and events please visit Mandir's website:
www.templeofpeace.org
or call 678-455-7200

This is to inform all of
you that we have a Shirdi Sai Baba Temple in Malaysia. Here
we have daily prayers and special prayers on thursday mornings
9.00am and bhajans and satsang from 8 pm onwards. Also breakfast,
lunch and dinner, cooked by our seva-group is provided to
all devotees. other than that first thursday of the month
we have talk on spirituality, second thursday on health, third
thursday satsang on Sai Satcharitra, fourth thursday talk
on general topics, by experts in the respective fields. Lot
of charitable activities are conducted by our Centre,like
sponsoring immediate services to childrens\' homes, old-folks
homes, sick and needy, etc. etc.

The dream of having a full
fledged exclusive Shirdi Sai Temple in Singapore, will soon
come true. Thanks to the efforts of a Sai devotee in making
this happen. The Shirdi Sai Baba Centre in Singapore is now
live with the 3rd floor function hall, Sri Vadapathira Kaliamman
temple, being secured and converted to a full fledged exclusive
Shirdi Sai worship centre. The Centre will be devoted to celebrating
the life & teachings of Shirdi Sai Baba only. For more
information visit our website http://www.saisansthan.com/

You may have given many different gifts to your
friends and loved ones, but giving a subscription of "Heritage
of Shirdi Sai" magazine would be a unique gift as it connects
the people you love with SADGURU SHIRDI SAI and brings
His blessings with the gift.

Topic of Discussion feature is
intended to initiate useful discussions on topics related
to Shirdi Sai Philosophy and His teachings, Guru Tradition,
Teachings of the Sadguru, the nature and functions
of the Perfect Masters, true devotion, qualification
of a disciple, etc.

Send your poem, article or drawing on SHIRDI SAI
BABA and the best ones will be showcased in Heritage of
Shirdi Sai Magazine and in the Children section on our
website. Anybody upto 18 years of age can send in the
material.

In order to ensure that Heritage Of
Shirdi Sai sustains itself and is available to devotees
at affordable rates, we do solicit advertisements. However,
in keeping with the magazine’s philosophy and approach,
the advertisements would be displayed as banners and
not creative commercial product.